viernes, 22 de enero de 2016

BURNS, Ore. (AP) — The leader of an armed group occupying a national wildlife refuge in Oregon met briefly with a federal agent Friday, but left because the agent wouldn't talk with him in front of the media.

The short meeting occurred as the standoff over federal land use policies stretches to the three-week mark and as Oregon officials are putting increased pressure on federal authorities to take action against Ammon Bundy's group.

Bundy arrived at the airport in Burns late Friday morning, where the FBI has set up a staging area. On Thursday, Bundy went to the airport and spoke to an FBI negotiator over the phone. They agreed to speak again Friday, but Bundy left shortly after he arrived because the FBI agent he spoke with said federal authorities wanted any conversation to be private.

Bundy wants face-to-face conversations in front of reporters.

"I really don't think, at this point, even having another phone conversation here without him would be beneficial," Bundy said before leaving.

He also questioned the FBI's authority.

"If you haven't got sanction from the sheriff, there's no reason to be talking to you," Bundy said.

A crowd of reporters watched the brief exchange, while state troopers and armed federal agents looked on.

Bundy's group began occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon on Jan. 2.

The FBI did not immediately comment on Friday's meeting with Bundy, but said in a statement Thursday their "response has been deliberate and measured as we seek a peaceful resolution."

On Wednesday, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said she was angry because federal authorities have not taken action against Bundy's group, which began occupying the refuge Jan 2. The Democratic governor said the occupation has cost Oregon taxpayers nearly half a million dollars.

Brown sent a letter Thursday to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey, urging them "to end the unlawful occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge as safely and as quickly as possible."

In a statement Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley said it was "long past time for this illegal occupation to end and for the people of Harney County to get their lives back."

The Democrat said he hope authorities could peacefully resolve the situation and hold Bundy's group accountable.

At community meetings, some local residents have asked Bundy and his group to leave. However Bundy has said he believes his group's work is appreciated by locals. He said the armed men have been "helping ranchers," doing maintenance on the refuge because "it's in a bad shape," and taking care of fire hazards in the refuge's fire house.

Bundy has also asked the FBI to let two ranchers sent to prison for arson go back home.

Earlier Bundy also said his group plans to have a ceremony Saturday for ranchers to renounce federal ownership of public land and tear up their federal grazing contracts. The armed group plans to open up the 300-square-mile refuge for cattle this spring.

lunes, 11 de enero de 2016

Taraji P. Henson snapping “Get off my train!” after handing out cookies, Ridley Scott humblebragging about The Martian’s box office take, Jamie Foxx announcing Straight Outta Compton won best score when it wasn’t nominated – as usual, this year’s Golden Globes Awards didn’t quite encompass the full range of performances by Hollywood A-listers. Here are some awards the Globes forgot to hand out last night:

Most Disturbing Over-Sharing In An Acceptance Speech

Accepting her Globe as best actress in a miniseries for American Horror Story: Hotel, Lady Gaga thanked her personal team: “The things I put my mind through and my body through while I’m working—it makes me like a child. I can’t do things alone. And you allow that.”

Best Dis of Western Civilization To Promote Your Own Personal Brand

“I have to say that I directed the movie that the great Ennio Morricone, at 87-years of age, did an original score for, and won the Golden Globe!” Quentin Tarantino raved, accepting the composer’s trophy for The Hateful Eight. Tarantino insisted that, until his movie, Morricone never had won an award for “for any individual movie” in the U.S. Except, the HFPA had twice previously done just that – which Voice-Over Guy even noted as Tarantino took the stage.

Best Audition To Replace Ricky Gervais As Golden Globe Awards Host

Jim Carrey wasn’t the only person who seemed to be auditioning to become the next Golden Globe host. Andy Samberg, most recent Emmy host, seemed to be taking a crack at it when he took the stage and launched into a “this is it, the final award of the night” gag as he presented one of the night’s early awards. But Carrey won the derby when he came out to run though the nominees for best motion picture. Like Gervais, he advised nominees to put the awards in perspective – he just did it much better:

“I’m two-time Golden Globe winner Jim Carrey. When I got to sleep at night, I’m not just a guy going to sleep. I’m two time Golden Globe winner Jim Carrey going to get some well-needed shut-eye. When I dream, I don’t just dream any old dream, no sir. I dream about being three time Golden Globe winning actor Jim Carrey, because then I would be enough. It would finally be true, and I could stop this terrible search, for what I know ultimately won’t fulfill me. But they are important, these awards. I don’t want you to think just because, if you blew up our solar system alone, you wouldn’t be able to find us, or any of human history, with the naked eye. But from our perspective this is huge! One more time: here are nominees for best motion picture.”

Greatest Bravery In The Face Of Get-the-Hell-Off-The-Stage Music

Taraji P. Henson, winning for best actress in a TV drama for Empire, let show

producers know she would not be moved till she taraji-p-henson-golden-globes-2016-ftr2had worked her way through her acceptance speech laundry list. “Please wrap? Wait a minute! I waited 20 years for this! You gonna’ wait! Yeah, you gonna’ give me a little more time.”

Most Likely to Have an “Accident” Backstage

Henson, after snapping at someone helping her get up onstage, “Get off my train!”

Most Suspenseful Competition Of The Evening

As Golden Globe Awards become less spontaneous, and acceptance speeches more tedious (a compelling argument for moving the ceremony back to cable), Ricky Gervais provided some welcome drama when he introduced presenter Mel Gibson, noting that when he’d hosted a few years back, he’d joked about Gibson “getting drunk and saying a few unsavory things.”

“Now I find myself in the awkward position of having to introduce him again. I’m sure it’s embarrassing for both of us. And I blame NBC for this terrible situation. Mel blames – we know who Mel blames,” Gervais snarked. “I want to say something nice about Mel before he comes out.” One Bill Cosby gag that did not land later, Gibson walks onstage.

“I love seeing Ricky once every three years because it reminds me to get a colonoscopy,” Gibson shot back, evening the score. Re-enter Gervais, to Gibson’s surprise, and viewers’ delight, to ask him what “sugar tits” means, according to tweets from the room. If true, it was a reference to a line Gibson allegedly used on a female cop when pulled over a few years back. Gervais’ question got bleeped by the NBC Decency Police, though viewers got to see the big reax in the room:

And Gervais got the last word—literally; the final words of the trophy show broadcast were Gervais, signing off: “That’s it. We’re out of time. From myself and Mel Gibson, shalom.”

Most Surprising Intimation Of Mortality
Morgan Freeman modestly told the ballroom as they applauded his entrance, “Not too much, now. Applause like that means usually they don’t expect to see you around much longer.” Less expected was when Jennifer Lawrence dropped “I want us to be buried next to each other, I really do” on her Joy director David O. Russell.

Best Acceptance Speech For A Lifetime Achievement Award That Wasn’t

Sylvester Stallone’s acceptance for best supporting actor for Creed sounded a lot like a career honor thank you. “I am the sum total of everyone I’ve ever met and so lucky I absorbed some of it. Last time I was here it was 1977… the view is so beautiful now.” After thanking “legendary producers Irwin Winkler and Bob Chartoff, who actually mortgaged his house to take a chance on a mumbling actor and gave me the shot of a lifetime,” he concluded, “Most of all, I want to thank my imaginary friend Rocky Balboa for being the best friend I ever had.” It was touching, though Twitter immediately slammed him for forgetting to mention the person responsible for his being onstage, Creed director Ryan Coogler. Twitter soon corrected itself with a report Stallone had thanked Coogler and star Michael B. Jordan, but only after cameras cut away.

Reminiscence HFPA Most Wanted Not To Hear During A Cecil B. DeMille Award Acceptance Speech

Denzel Washington, accepting the actual career honor from the association, was carried back in time to when legendary agent/producer Freddie Fields took him under wing. “He invited me to [my] first Hollywood Foreign Press luncheon. He said, ‘They’re going to watch the movie, we’re going to feed them. They’re going to come over, you’re going to take pictures with everybody, you’re going to hold the magazines, take the pictures – and you’re going to win the award. I won that year.”

viernes, 23 de octubre de 2015

Hurricane Patricia became the strongest storm ever measured on the planet early Friday, with experts warning it could trigger 40-foot waves along southwestern Mexico and "life-threatening" flash flooding.

More than 7 million residents — and an estimated tens of thousands of U.S. citizens visiting or living there — were told to prepare for the "worst-case scenario" as the ferocious storm was expected to race ashore on Mexico's Pacific coast between 6 to 10 p.m. ET Friday.

The tourist magnets of Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo were directly in the Category 5 storm's projected path, and Puerto Vallarta's airport was closed Friday out of precaution as some stranded vacationers described their inability to fly out a "nightmare."

Packing 200 mph winds, the U.S. National Hurricane Center labeled Patricia as the "strongest hurricane on record" in the Atlantic and eastern North Pacific Basins.

Mexico has not formally requested help from the U.S., but State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters Friday that America "stands up to offer any assistance that we can in the aftermath of what at least appears to be a pretty epic event in terms of the intensity and size of the storm."

NBC News meteorologist Bill Karins warned that Patricia would be "the most devastating storm to ever hit Mexico" with "catastrophic damage" likely between the posh resort of Puerto Vallarta and the bustling port city of Manzanillo.

While typhoons Nancy and Violet had stronger estimated winds, Patricia was the strongest storm ever actually observed, Karins added. Patricia already has "put on quite a show" in how rapidly and unexpectedly it has strengthened, he said.

Typhoon Haiyan, which devastated the Philippines in 2013, made landfall with 190 mph winds. Patricia is poised to surpass that record, Karins said.

At 1 p.m. ET, Patricia was about 85 miles southwest of Manzanillo, and about 155 miles south of Cabo Corrientes.

Hurricane warnings stretched from San Blas to Punta San Telmo, an area that includes Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo. CONAGUA, the Mexican national water commission, predicted waves about 40 feet at landfall.

The National Hurricane Center said it was expected to produce deadly rip currents and "life-threatening flash floods and mudslides."

It added: "Some fluctuations in intensity are possible today, but Patricia is expected to remain an extremely dangerous Category 5 hurricane through landfall."

Rogelio Estreda, a representative for the Grand Fiesta Americana Resort in Puerto Vallarta, told NBC News that the site would be evacuated at 7 a.m. local time (8 a.m. ET).

"We are expecting something bad, but maybe nothing will happen," Estreda said. "It can change at any time."

Patricia would be only the second Category 5 hurricane to hit the entire Pacific coast since full record-keeping began in 1949. An unnamed storm struck in late October 1959 near Manzanillo, killing an estimated 1,800 people — 800 of them from mudslides alone.

Karins added that 10 inches of rain were already predicted for Texas over the next three days, warning that "what's left of Patricia will make flooding in south Texas even worse" on Sunday.

12H 23/1800Z 18.8N 105.4W 180 KT 205 MPH! What that says is in 12 hours when this is coming ashore it will be at 205 MPH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Laura Diane Rebholz, who co-owns a modeling agency in Scottsdale, Arizona, told NBC News early Friday that she felt it was "safer to ride the storm out" at the Puerto Vallarta hotel where she's vacationing.

"It's almost as if it's literally 'the calm before the storm,'" she said. "It's very much business as usual around the resort with staff seemingly unfazed by the hurricane."

But Australian newlywed Natalie Griffin said Friday that she and her husband were trying to catch an early flight out of Puerto Vallarta after five days of vacationing. At the hotel on Thursday, she said, guests were told that they could be evacuated by bus to Guadalajara, Jalisco's capital city located further inland.

Griffin said she decided to take her chances at the airport early Friday, but flights out were looking grim.

"We were all excited as we thought we were about to board, and now they have said the airport is closed but they want to get special permission to fly this plane out," she told NBC News. "Everyone wants to know if we are flying or not so we can make plans to leave the area."

Among those hunkering down include Atlanta-born Ian Hayden Parker, who founded the Vallarta Daily News in Puerto Vallarta, which has established 18 hurricane shelters.

"We live in a resort town, but outside of the tourist zone, there is still a lot of poverty and people without computers, Internet or phones," said Parker, who hopes to continue to inform locals about the storm's impact.
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After residents were urged to begin storm preparations Thursday, Parker said, "many people followed our advice and are now just playing the wait and see game."

For some tourists, the impending hurricane created an unexpected upheaval in their plans — and forced them to pack up quickly and head for safer ground.

Jason Sapp and Teri Batterfield were set to get married Friday night on the beach outside of the Hyatt Ziva in Puerto Vallerta. Instead, they and about 25 other guests were on a bus heading to Guadalajara — a ride they were told would take 10 hours because of all the traffic from people evacuating the coastal area.

Daughter Jessica Sapp, of the San Diego area, told NBC News that it's been a "nightmare" for the couple and the other guests who flew in on Thursday for the wedding. The Hyatt, she added, has been shut down.

"They were putting boards on the windows and everybody had to evacuate," she said. "They had a little bit of food for us, but everything is shutting down."

Fiona Bronte, 24, said she first checked into the Vidanta resort in Puerto Vallerta on Saturday with her grandparents and parents. Guests at her hotel were awaiting anxiously Friday afternoon to be redirected to a shelter — but their patience was fraying.

"Everyone is starting to get worried and trying to stock up on food and water," the San Francisco woman said, adding, "People are remaining calm at the moment, but nerves are starting to run high."

jueves, 30 de abril de 2015

BHAKTAPUR, Nepal — A team of the United States’ most renowned search-and-rescue workers drove into the shattered city of Bhaktapur on Wednesday, having traveled to Nepal from Fairfax County, Va.

They brought with them sniffer dogs trained to detect live bodies, acoustic and seismic listening devices designed to pick up noises from entombed victims, and engineers capable of cutting through six-inch walls of reinforced concrete. Their goal was straightforward, said Capt. Mike Davis, the team’s manager.

“We are going out there to look for human life,” he said.

The members of the disaster assistance response team, from the United States Agency for International Development, drew stares, with their buzz cuts and neon hard hats, as they mounted the hill into the 15th-century city. But the next three hours brought a slow deflation, as they bumped into other international crews and one resident after another told them there was no one to save. The ruined houses were mashed wads of brick and mud and wood, leaving no space that could allow a trapped person to survive.

One tip seemed promising — a collapsed five-story concrete building — but a Pakistani military team was already scouring it.

A white-haired man approached Captain Davis, bowed his head and joined his hands together in prayer, pointing to the place where his 26-year-old son, Amin Sainju, was buried when his house collapsed. But Amin was presumed dead, and Captain Davis explained, through a translator, that the team was tasked with finding the living.

“We could be at the end of that window,” he explained in an interview. “But we have got to try.”

By Wednesday, four days after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked this impoverished country, the death toll had risen above 5,200, and recovery and relief efforts had become a long, hard slog. Newspapers made much of the story of Rishi Khanal, 27, who was rescued on Tuesday after being trapped for around 80 hours in the debris of a hotel where he had been eating lunch.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Mr. Khanal described drinking his own urine for sustenance and banging with his hands on the rubble around him until he caught the notice of a French-led rescue team.

In Bhaktapur, a city about seven miles from Katmandu, though, people’s entreaties had a numbing sameness. They wanted tarpaulins, food and water. And they wanted help recovering the dead.

Lt. Col. A. R. Rana, a Nepali army officer, named four countries that had sent search teams into the city in the last several days. He said no one had been found alive in the city since Monday, and international teams should take on more practical tasks.

“They are all doing the same thing,” he said. “They are sending people who want to get live bodies.”

With tens of thousands of people living in tents in parks and fairgrounds, frustration is building. Several hundred people blocked traffic Wednesday in Katmandu, the capital, complaining that they had not received any aid and demanding transportation to their villages. Reuters reported that a group of around 200 villagers in Sangachowk, a hard-hit area about a three hours’ drive from Katmandu, used tires to block a highway so they could stop trucks filled with food and relief materials headed for the district headquarters.

Signs of life were returning in many places. In Bhaktapur, which was deserted just two days ago, families returned in great numbers on Wednesday, and some people were balanced precariously on three-story piles of bricks, trying to extract and dust off family photos.

Vikas Jamban stood in a square with a few friends, watching first a 20-person detachment of the Blue Sky Rescue team, a group of volunteers from China, and then Captain Davis’s crew. Mr. Jamban said that he had also seen Indian, French and Polish crews pass through before the Americans, and that he was counting on International aid organizations to provide services that the government had not.

“Up until four days we have nothing to eat, no water, no electricity, and my house is broken,” he said. “The Nepali government, I don’t know what they’re doing.”

John Tung, a structural engineer who travels with Captain Davis’s team, was eyeballing the narrow pink-brick houses around him, some of them hundreds of years old. Judging from the visible slant on the first floor of the houses that remained standing, he said, around 30 percent were unstable and could fall if there was another strong aftershock.

“We saw a bird sitting on the side of one building,” said Blake Payne, a software engineer who serves as a technical specialist for the team. “The bird took off, and a brick fell.”

Nearly three hours had passed since the team had arrived, and Captain Davis was in a hurry to move to a neighborhood where there was a greater likelihood of finding survivors. He was still being trailed, a little mournfully, by Radesham Sainju, the father who had hoped someone would uncover the body of his son, but that would not happen: The elite response teams follow guidelines set by the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group, which confine them to rescuing the living until the country’s government has declared the search over. Even after that, they almost never recover dead bodies.

“If you tried to recover all the dead bodies, you might leave live bodies to die,” said Bill Berger, the U.S.A.I.D. disaster assistance response team leader in Nepal. “We only have so much bandwidth to the search-and-rescue team, so they have to focus on getting live bodies. That’s always got to be the priority.”

But that, Mr. Tung said, does not make it any less frustrating to walk away from a place without having found any sign of survivors. They had come so far.

miércoles, 29 de abril de 2015

Melamchi, Nepal (CNN) - Even from high above, flying in an Indian Air Force helicopter, it is easy to see that the people of Melamchi, central Nepal, are happy to see us.

Residents in this remote village, about a 44km drive from Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, stand on the distinctive steeply terraced hillsides and wave furiously as the relief flight passes overhead.

The mission, a joint effort between Indian air crew and a Nepalese army medical team, is only the third operation of its kind to reach the village since Saturday's massive 7.8-magnitude quake, which left more than 5,000 people dead.

The aircraft is stuffed to capacity with tents, medicines and packages of tinned tuna, instant noodles and rice, all bundled haphazardly aboard the Mi-17 by soldiers at the air base in Kathmandu barely 15 minutes earlier.

Local official Upendra Tamang is there to greet the helicopter as it touches down on a field in front of the village medical clinic, and waiting soldiers swing into action to unload the delivery.

He says people have been desperately awaiting the supplies. The situation in Melamchi and the surrounding villages is "dire," he tells CNN through a translator.

According to Nepal's National Emergency Operation Center, 1,376 people were killed in Sindhupalchok District, where Melamchi is located, when the earthquake hit.

Some 18,000 houses were destroyed and 100,000 people have been displaced in the surrounding area, says Tamang.

"Everyone is sleeping outside," he says.

He has serious concerns about food supplies in the region, saying the piled boxes of rice and noodles aren't nearly enough to meet the needs of local people.

"Aid agencies need to do something very quickly," he says.

In the days since the quake, injured people from the region have been told to find their way to Melamchi so they can be picked up by the relief flights, he says.

They've sent about 500 of the most seriously injured people for treatment in Kathmandu already -- the majority by road -- but many more are stuck in a local clinic waiting for help.

Seven of them, five women and two men, are suddenly driven onto the airfield in a truck and on the back of a pickup.

Their injuries are not life-threatening, but they look to be in a bad state: bloodied, exhausted and traumatized.

An elderly woman's face is covered in bandages that look like they haven't been changed in days.

Another cries in pain as she is loaded on to a stretcher from the back of the pickup, then awkwardly hoisted on to the helicopter.

Among the injured brought on board the flight is Forshani Tamang, accompanied by her son.

He tells CNN their family lives in a village called Bachunde, where nearly all the houses were destroyed. He and other family members carried Forshani for four hours to reach Melamchi.

With their home destroyed and their stores of grain lost, the family are in crisis.

As the helicopter takes off for the capital, flying over a landscape dotted with collapsed buildings and bright orange tents, Nepalese army doctor Naveen Tiwari offers perhaps the only positive for those on board.

The patients' injuries are mostly lacerations of varying degrees, he says. Their vital signs are all stable, and with antibiotics and intravenous drips, they should recover.

When the helicopter touches down at Kathmandu airbase, the patients are swiftly unloaded and unceremoniously laid out on the tarmac in the emergency triage area in front of an aircraft hangar, and paramedics scramble to administer IV drips to those in need

As Forshani's son feeds her a cracker softened with water, the relief team turn to prepare for another mission.

Volkswagen increased operating profit in the first quarter on cost cuts and improving European auto demand, winning some respite after the shock ouster of Chairman Ferdinand Piech.

Operating profit jumped 17 percent to 3.33 billion euros ($3.65 billion), from 2.86 billion a year earlier, VW said on Wednesday, close to the top end of a range in a Reuters poll of analysts, whose forecasts averaged 3.12 billion euros.

The German group stuck to its guidance for the 2015 operating margin to come in a range between 5.5 and 6.5 percent after reaching 6.3 percent last year.

VW also still expects group revenue to exceed last year's record 202 billion euros by as much as 4 percent on continued growth in deliveries.

KATHMANDU, Nepal -- Shelter, fuel, food, medicine, power, news, workers -- Nepal's earthquake-hit capital was short on everything Monday as its people searched for lost loved ones, sorted through rubble for their belongings and struggled to provide for their families' needs. In much of the countryside, it was worse, though how much worse was only beginning to become apparent.
The official overall death toll soared past 4,000, even without a full accounting from vulnerable mountain villages that rescue workers were still struggling to reach two days after the disaster.
Udav Prashad Timalsina, the top official for the Gorkha district, where Saturday's magnitude-7.8 quake was centred, said he was in desperate need of help.
"There are people who are not getting food and shelter. I've had reports of villages where 70 per cent of the houses have been destroyed," he said.
Aid group World Vision said its staff members were able to reach Gorkha, but gathering information from the villages remained a challenge. Even when roads are clear, the group said, some remote areas can be three days' walk from Gorkha's main disaster centre.
Some roads and trails have been blocked by landslides, the group said in an email to The Associated Press. "In those villages that have been reached, the immediate needs are great including the need for search and rescue, food items, blankets and tarps, and medical treatment."
Timalsina said 223 people had been confirmed dead in Gorkha district but he presumed "the number would go up because there are thousands who are injured." He said his district had not received enough help from the central government, but Jagdish Pokhrel, the clearly exhausted army spokesman, said nearly the entire 100,000-soldier army was involved in rescue operations.
"We have 90 per cent of the army out there working on search and rescue," he said. "We are focusing our efforts on that, on saving lives."
Saturday's earthquake spread horror from Kathmandu to small villages and to the slopes of Mount Everest, triggering an avalanche that buried part of the base camp packed with foreign climbers preparing to make their summit attempts.
Aid is coming from more than a dozen countries and many charities, but Lila Mani Poudyal, the government's chief secretary and the rescue co-ordinator, said Nepal needed more.
He said the recovery was also being slowed because many workers -- water tanker drivers, electricity company employees and labourers needed to clear debris -- "are all gone to their families and staying with them, refusing to work."
"We are appealing for tents, dry goods, blankets, mattresses, and 80 different medicines that the health department is seeking that we desperately need now," Poudyal told reporters. "We don't have the helicopters that we need or the expertise to rescue the people trapped."
As people are pulled from the wreckage, he noted, even more help is needed.
"Now we especially need orthopedic (doctors), nerve specialists, anaesthetists, surgeons and paramedics," he said. "We are appealing to foreign governments to send these specialized and smart teams."
About 7,180 people were injured in the quake, police said. Poudyal estimated that tens of thousands of people had been left homeless. "We have been under severe stress and pressure, and have not been able to reach the people who need help on time," he said.
The arrival of relief flights has caused major backups at Kathmandu's small airport.
Four Indian air force aircraft carrying aid supplies and rescue personnel were forced to return to New Delhi on Monday because of airport congestion, Indian defence ministry spokesman Sitanshu Kar said. India planned to resend the planes later Monday night when the situation was expected to have eased.
Nepal police said on their Facebook page that the country's death toll had risen to 3,904 people. That does not include the 18 people killed in the avalanche, which were counted by the mountaineering association.
Another 61 people were killed in neighbouring India, and China's official Xinhua News Agency reported 25 people dead in Tibet.
Well over 1,000 of the victims were in Kathmandu, the capital, where an eerie calm prevailed Monday.
Tens of thousands of families slept outdoors for a second night, fearful of aftershocks that have not ceased. Camped in parks, open squares and a golf course, they cuddled children or pets against chilly Himalayan nighttime temperatures.
They woke to the sound of dogs yelping and jackhammers. As the dawn light crawled across toppled building sites, volunteers and rescue workers carefully shifted broken concrete slabs and crumbled bricks mixed together with humble household items: pots and pans; a purple notebook decorated with butterflies; a framed poster of a bodybuilder; so many shoes.
"It's overwhelming. It's too much to think about," said 55-year-old Bijay Nakarmi, mourning his parents, whose bodies recovered from the rubble of what once was a three-story building.
He could tell how they died from their injuries. His mother was electrocuted by a live wire on the roof top. His father was cut down by falling beams on the staircase.
He had last seen them a few days earlier -- on Nepal's Mothers' Day -- for a cheerful family meal.
"I have their bodies by the river. They are resting until relatives can come to the funeral," Nakarmi said as workers continued searching for another five people buried underneath the wreckage.
Kathmandu district chief administrator Ek Narayan Aryal said tents and water were being handed out Monday at 10 locations in Kathmandu, but that aftershocks were leaving everyone jittery. The largest, on Sunday, was magnitude 6.7.
"There have been nearly 100 earthquakes and aftershocks, which is making rescue work difficult. Even the rescuers are scared and running because of them," he said.
"We don't feel safe at all. There have been so many aftershocks. It doesn't stop," said Rajendra Dhungana, 34, who spent Sunday with his niece's family for her cremation at the Pashuputi Nath Temple.
Acrid, white smoke rose above the Hindu temple, Nepal's most revered. "I've watched hundreds of bodies burn," Dhungana said.
The capital city is largely a collection of small, poorly constructed brick apartment buildings. The earthquake destroyed swaths of the oldest neighbourhoods, but many were surprised by how few modern structures collapsed in the quake.
On Monday morning, some pharmacies and shops for basic provisions opened while bakeries began offering fresh bread.
Huge lines of people desperate to secure fuel lined up outside gasoline pumps, though prices were the same as they were before the earthquake struck.
With power lines down, spotty phone connections and almost no Internet connectivity, residents were particularly anxious to buy morning newspapers.
Pierre-Anne Dube, a 31-year-old from Canada, has been sleeping on the sidewalk outside a hotel. She said she's gone from the best experience of her life, a trek to Everest base camp, to the worst, enduring the earthquake and its aftermath.
"We can't reach the embassy. We want to leave. We are scared. There is no food. We haven't eaten a meal since the earthquake and we don't have any news about what's going on," she said.
The earthquake was the worst to hit the South Asian nation in more than 80 years. It and was strong enough to be felt all across parts of India, Bangladesh, China's region of Tibet and Pakistan.
Nepal's worst recorded earthquake in 1934 measured 8.0 and all but destroyed the cities of Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Patan.
The quake has put a huge strain on the resources of this impoverished country best known for Everest, the highest mountain in the world.
The economy of Nepal, a nation of 27.8 million people, relies heavily on tourism, principally trekking and Himalayan mountain climbing.